kp hadn’t had the best of nights. She couldn’t have breakfast because she couldn’t sit upright as they wanted her head lower than the rest of her body to get her blood pressure (78 over 45) right again.

They gave her quite a few pints of liquid intravenously this morning. Probably about 4 pints over a period of 2 hours and that helped with the blood pressure and kp was able to sit up for 20 mins or so and have some tea and toast.

She was a bit confused today (and last night also). She didn’t think she was in her room. When I walked into her toilet, she thought I had gone outside – things like that. No doubt down to the infection/low blood pressure.

Lots of sleep also, which suited me as today I was exhausted, to the point she nearly had to shout me to get me to move her legs I was so zonked. Will fix that this afternoon.

Apparently, Marie had some crack with kp in the afternoon before she landed back into snoozeland. The afternoon was not without glitches however. The venflon thing which they put drugs into kp with intravenously had “tissued”, which basically means passing any fluids into kp this way is painful for her. When this happens, they have to resite it. Well, kp has no veins FULL STOP. They do well to find them anywhere and she is notoriously difficult to tap into.

The Doctor tried his best to find a vein in the arm, but couldn’t so had to resort to a foot which is more painful. kp knew this and bribed the Doctor and the Nurse with chocolates to keep the pain to a minimum. The Doctor and Nurse scoffed the chocolates BEFORE they did the maneuvre. Suffice to say, it took 4 attempts to seat the venflon.

kp:- Owwwww, Owwwww, Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
kp:- Marie, Get that chocolate out of the nurse now.

Everyone laughed.

Lots of bowel issues this afternoon also.

The consultant came to see Karen tonight. After checking various things through with her, I asked if kp could see her pelvic x-ray. I had seen them, but hadn’t managed to get kp to see them. He brought them in and kp was amazed to see all the screws and plates which show up so brightly on the dark x-ray. He then asked kp if she would like to see her brain scan. This was very interesting. He highlighted parts of the scan to us, showing us wide areas of dark on the right hand side of the brain. This was the part of the brain affected by the stroke. I know now what they mean by a wide area stroke. It wasn’t isolated to a certain part of the brain. You could see it across a lot of the right hand side.

Lovely chap and very helpful. We complimented him on the staff and care we had received. It really has been excellent !

All of the above left kp exhausted tonight and couple that with the fact she is very weak at the moment, she just wanted a comfy position and to go to sleep, which she did.